1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a ceramic gas burner for a hot blast stove e.g. of a blast furnace, comprising a burner crown essentially composed of a plurality of shaped bricks which define terminal portions of air and gas ducts.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A burner as described above is known for example from NL-A-8702037, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,863,378. Because of the high thermal loading to which this kind of burner is exposed, its service life is generally much shorter than the service life of the hot blast stove in which it is installed. Repairing a burned-out burner is costly, and to a large extent this is related to the complex construction of the known burner. In fact the known burner is formed of over fifty different shaped bricks which each have to be placed precisely in their correct places. This means that the construction or reconstruction of such a burner is a job which must be carried out by highly qualified people. The complexity of the known burner also means that the construction or repair time lasts a considerable number of days, in general at least fifteen working days. Much of the costs of a repair are caused by the long downtime of the hot blast stove.
As background to the present invention, mention is made of other burner designs for hot blast stoves disclosed in EP-A-306072, DE-A-3240852, GB-A-2017290 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,568,932.